…treatment for gout, with the goal of titrating upward until serum urate is stably below 360 μmol/l — not setting a fixed dose and…

…penicillin for parenteral use First-line treatment for community-acquired pneumonia and erysipelas, and the foundation of the narrow-spectrum antibiotic tradition. Pneumococci, streptococci, and…

…antihistamine First-line treatment for allergic rhinoconjunctivitis and chronic urticaria — one tablet daily, available without prescription, with good effect on itching, sneezing, and rhinorrhoea but…

…blocking agent First-line treatment for regular narrow-complex tachycardia when vagal manoeuvres have failed. Acts by blocking the AV node for a few seconds…

Atropin Viatris Atropin Abboxia Atropine Accord Muscarinic receptor antagonist (vagolytic) First-line treatment for symptomatic bradycardia, but only when the bradycardia is vagally mediated or…

Adrenalin Stragen EpiPen Jext α- and β-agonist The only drug that reverses all components of anaphylaxis, and the cornerstone of cardiac arrest treatment. The…

…Fosavance Aminobisphosphonate First-line agent for osteoporosis and the best-documented fracture-preventing treatment in primary care. Efficacy for vertebral and hip fractures is well…

…APL Concentrated carbohydrate solution for acute hypoglycaemia The first-line treatment for severe hypoglycaemia in a patient who cannot swallow and in whom intravenous access…

…first-line for uncomplicated acute otitis media — that role belongs to phenoxymethylpenicillin — but for treatment failure, recurrent otitis, otitis with concurrent purulent conjunctivitis, and as…

…eliminated renally, so renal function governs treatment entirely. Dyspepsia affects one in ten patients and is the most common reason for discontinuation in clinical practice.

…As standing treatment it is something entirely different: the parent compound has a half-life of one to two days and the active metabolite desmethyldiazepam…

…mastitis, and infected eczema. Absorption is destroyed by food, making the timing of administration a genuine treatment variable and not a formality. The most clinically…

…1 mg intramuscularly is the treatment that a family member can give when the patient cannot swallow and intravenous access is unavailable — the effect arrives…

…unsuitable as first-line treatment in hypertensive crisis — but useful in pre-eclampsia and as afterload relief in combination with a nitrate and beta-blocker.

…minutes and duration under half an hour. A niche drug: catecholamine-induced hypertensive crisis — phaeochromocytoma, cocaine and amphetamine intoxication, MAO inhibitor crisis — and local treatment…

…for migraine and chronic tension-type headache, at doses well below the antidepressant range. The effect on pain occurs already at 10–50 mg and…

…approximately one third as much elemental calcium per ml as calcium chloride, and that confusion is the most common dosing error in acute calcium treatment.

…in musculoskeletal and postoperative pain, but with the most unfavourable cardiovascular profile in the class — the increase in risk for myocardial infarction, stroke, and heart…

…non-linear. Hence the wide dose range and three-times-daily regimen. Used in peripheral neuropathic pain and as adjunctive treatment in focal epilepsy. Excreted…

…fibrillation the rate control sits in the AV node and ivabradine is ineffective. Its place in treatment is the symptomatic patient with HFrEF who remains…